Last night six teams of students from year 9 came together to compete in the first Ark Globe Academy ‘First Give Final’. The teams had competed against others in their year group to reach the final where they were pitching to a panel of external judges for the opportunity to win £1000 for their chosen charity. The presentations were all excellent and used a variety of techniques throughout to improve their argument further as to why their team should win the £1000.  These techniques included poems that the students had written themselves and examples of personal stories of people who had been helped by the charity. The students also proved their abilities to remember numbers by giving the audience lots of statistics which they then tested them on at the end of the presentations using different visual aids.

Although all of the presentations were fantastic examples of our students professionalism skills in action there could only be one winner and we are pleased to announce that the winning team of Rose and Shennaen from McKinley School won £1000 for the mental health charity ‘Mind’. The teams who pitched for the charities British Heart Foundation and Starlight also won £250 each to donate.

Matt Jones, Principal said: “I’m so proud of the students’ hard work on the programme and impressed that they can stand up at such a young age to speak with such sincerity and integrity so passionately about the issues they care about. Through preparing for these presentations the students have obviously tried again and again to improve which is a really positive example of growth mindset in action.  What they've learnt from First Give has given them the aspiration to continue doing good work in their local community.”

One of the poems written by the students pitching for the charity XLP, which works to create positive futures for young people growing up on deprived inner city estates, was so good that we wanted to share it with the wider community so please enjoy reading it below.

I never know who to trust

I was in a world full of strangers

Even though we were always alert

It was hard to ignore the danger

 

I never knew what obstacles

May be lurking around the bend

There had been many times

I thought my life would end

 

Today there are still times

When I wake up in the dead of night

Even though I’m sound asleep

I cannot shock that awful fright

 

The memories always still haunt me

I can’t get them out of my head

So often I look back and realise

Many times I came close to being dead

 

The war will never really be over

For those who have lived through hell

And as though thoughs always remain

There are many stories we have to tell.

By Houssen Dossou-Yovo and David Gyimah, year 9, Elbrus

Congratulations to all students who took part in the Final and thank you to parents and staff for supporting the event.

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